PetMed Express, Inc.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining the PetMed Express Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. My name is Shamali, the operator for today's call. I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Mr. Brian Prenner of Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is now yours.

Thank you, operator. I'd like to welcome everybody here today to the PetMed Express Fiscal Second Quarter Earnings Call. I would also like to remind everyone that the first portion of this conference call will be listened only until the question and answer session, which will be later in the call. Also, certain information that will be included during this call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended that may involve a number of risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on our beliefs as well as assumptions we have used based upon information currently available to us. Because these statements reflect our current views concerning future events, these statements involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Actual results could differ materially from those projected. There can be no assurance that any forward-looking results will occur or be realized, and nothing contained in this presentation is or should be relied upon as a representation or warranty as to any future matter, including any matter in respect to the operations or business or financial condition of PetMeds. PetMeds undertakes no obligation to update publicly these forward-looking statements based on subsequent events, except as may be required by applicable law, regulation, or other competent legal authority. We have identified various risk factors associated with our operations and our most recent annual report and other filings within the Securities and Exchange Commission. Also, during the course of today's call, the company will be discussing one or more non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the press release we issued this afternoon. Now, let me introduce our CEO and President, Matt Hewlett. Matt? Thank you, Brian.

Thank you to everyone for making the time today to participate in our earnings call. For today's earnings call, I would like to focus my remarks on our operational advancements and overall progress. For the quarter ending September 30, 2023, PetMeds delivered sales of $71 million compared to sales of $65.4 million in the prior year, an increase of 9% year-over-year, reflecting our recent acquisition of PetCareRx. Our auto ship and save and pet plus programs grew to 51% of our revenue during this last fiscal quarter, a substantial increase from 39% of revenue for the same time last year. Later in the operating section, we will be discussing the significant improvements that we are making to the platform and program. This quarter delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of year over year growth and new customers. We added 75.6 thousand new customers during the quarter, representing a 25% increase year-over-year. This growth includes new customers from the core pet meds business, as well as the contribution from the addition of PetCareArts' new customers. While we were excited about the sequential growth in new customers, we continue to face challenges with stabilizing the core pet meds returning customer base. Returning customers accounted for sales of 62.4 million during the quarter, reflecting growth of 4.5% year-over-year. However, this growth was solely attributable to the addition of the PetCareRx business. While we do not break out our sales between the core PetMeds and PetCareRx brands, the returning PetMeds customer base is still declining at approximately the same single-digit rate from the previous quarter. And while the decline is less than it was a year ago, we have not yet achieved a stabilized returning customer base. Stabilizing the core returning customer base remains a top priority for us. We believe the combination of selling more consumable products to our existing customers and enhancing our recurring subscription platform offering is key to this challenge. As such, our immediate focus is on adding additional products to the basket. migrating more of our repeat business to our auto ship and save program, and expanding on our operating initiatives currently underway to create deeper relationships with our returning base. Lastly, PetMeds is not immune to the overall market conditions. Based on our own data, the pet industry data, as well as discussions with our supplier partners, we have seen some softness in our core returning customer base in terms of reduced spending. PetMeds pioneered the direct-to-consumer pet prescription space over 27 years ago based on a value proposition, and we have a large base of price-conscious pet parents in our active customer base. We have also seen some specific categories and products in the prescription space that have come under pressure, contributing to the softness in our year-over-year numbers. While we feel that PetMeds' current mix, being largely in the prescription healthcare business, is more resilient to macroeconomic pressures, We are certainly not immune to them. We believe that our diversification into new consumable categories and our continued push into our core value positioning provide an opportunity to grow over the long term. Next slide, please. PetMeds is making strong progress on our strategy to evolve the business from our legacy as a prominent pet medication retailer to our future where pet parents recognize PetMeds as their most trusted pet health experts. Our pet healthcare strategy revolves around four key pillars, medication, care, nutrition, and wellness. PetMeds is focused on integrating and executing on our newly acquired partnerships and assets to offer a broader range of products and services to our core PetMeds customer base on a recurring basis. Our suite of products and services is attractive because pet owners are increasingly gravitating towards brands that are deeply committed to the overall health and well-being of their pets. And we're proud to be that brand. We have been very clear as to the significant milestones that represent the key performance indicators for our transformation into a growth-oriented business. These indicators are providing more, bringing more products to our customers beyond our core medication business. In particular, expanding into food and other consumable nutrition products which will help stabilize our core returning customer base. Continued gains in recurring revenue, year-over-year increases in new customers, meeting and exceeding market growth rates for the entire pet meds business. I would now like to highlight the key operational achievements from this last quarter. Under the strategic theme of expanding our product offerings beyond our core prescription business, PetMeds is poised to service a more dynamic and increasingly competitive market. I'm excited to announce significant improvements to our core infrastructure that will improve PetMeds' ability to support our expansion into a multi-category company, as well as expand our core subscription services to our pet parents. To add a bit more color, management has been working in parallel on upgrading the core e-commerce business systems while investing in new assets and capabilities to expand our relationship with our customers. We are currently rolling out enhancements to certain legacy systems that will enable the business to scale more quickly, delight customers, and will unlock value for pet meds. To provide even more detail, we are implementing a new modern order management system. This platform will allow us to more efficiently track sales, process orders, manage inventory, and streamline fulfillment across multiple distribution locations. While on the topic of technology investments and upgrades, during our last earnings call, we mentioned that we implemented a new email and CRM platform. PetMeds now has the capability to personalize promotions and campaigns based on customer type within the PetMeds ecosystem, thus enabling us to begin expanding wallet share across the large base of pet meds primarily prescription-based, customer-based. For example, we can target different types of pet parents with specific offers and recommendations based on their unique wants and needs. These infrastructure upgrades will play a pivotal role as pet meds returns to being a growth business. Growth and recurring subscription revenue is essential to our strategy, and these investments have enabled us to develop the second generation of our auto-ship and save programs. Now let's move on to what these investments mean for enabling pet med to have more recurring subscription revenue. Our new auto ship and save capability will enhance the current capabilities to include more pet parent control over their ordering experience, including activities like controlling the subscription duration, pausing a subscription and changing the quantity of an order. We strongly believe that these changes will result in a greatly enhanced customer experience. In addition, We will soon make available an exciting new value add capability. Specifically, this means that our VetLife functionality, which connects pet parents to licensed veterinarians over a digital connection 24-7, will be available for all of our auto-ship and save customers on a complimentary basis. We firmly believe that providing access to integrated expert services, in addition to expanding our product catalog, provides real differentiation in the pet market. We believe this differentiation really materializes when we integrate our capabilities into one integrated pet parent experience with virtual vet services, integrated insurance, and curated health and wellness products all in one place. I've already reported on our growth in net new customers. The area that I would like to highlight is that we see continued growth in the acquisition of new customers. PetMeds has historically had a very deep but limited product catalog. specifically focused on the pet prescription space. Today and in the future, we are leaning into a broader product catalog to include more nutrition and wellness offerings that can address a greater share of pet parents' needs. In terms of meeting and exceeding industry growth rates, we firmly believe that adding more differentiation in the form of unique services like VetLive, combined with a broader catalog of products outside of prescription medication, enables us to stabilize our returning pet parent base, attract and retain new customers, and to expand our overall sales. As mentioned, we are actively introducing premium and prescription food to our extensive base of over 2 million pet parents. This represents a huge opportunity to increase the basket size, which should lead to increases in lifetime value and overall retention of our customer base. Last quarter, We were excited to introduce the Purina product line, and now our Royal Canin retail line of products have been recently added to our growing pet food catalog. In addition, I'm excited to announce that we are now live with our pet insurance offering. As you may recall, our new insurance offering is powered by our partnership with the leading insurance company, Pumpkin Insurance, which is now majority owned by JAB Holdings. We envision that the introduction of our insurance product will be viewed as a valuable offering by our expansive community of over 2 million pet parents. As you can see, we've made substantial progress this past quarter. Now, I'd like to hand the presentation over to Christine.